Pictured above is state Rep. Mary Morrissey, a longtime (but not at all influential) member of the House who has suddenly been thrust into the spotlight for the most bizarre of reasons.

Per Kevin McCallum of Seven Days, the Bennington Republican has repeatedly dumped cups of water into a tote bag owned by Rep. Jim Carroll, a Bennington Democrat. Well, she allegedly did so, but Carroll has the goods. After finding his stuff thoroughly soaked on several occasions, he set up a small camera across the hall from his bag. And, as McCallum reports, he’s got video that “clearly shows Morrissey leave her Statehouse committee room, walk over to a bag outside Carroll’s committee room and dump a cup of water into it.” And he caught it on camera more than once.

Also, House leadership has already taken at least one action that indicates Morrissey is, in fact, guilty.

No matter what your attitude toward casual profanity might be, the phrase “What the fuck?” cannot help but escape your lips. This is so petty, so pointlessly mean-spirited, that it boggles the mind. Morrissey has served in the Legislature since 1997. Her Legislative bio lists an incredible number of community honors and appointments in Bennington. She is a devout Catholic.

By her biography, you’d think she’d be the last person on Earth to do something like this. But it’s right there on tape.

What happens now? We’ll be kept in the dark as long as possible The House Ethics Panel won’t even say whether it is investigating. It does all its business behind closed doors. Nothing is revealed until or unless the panel determines there has been an ethics violation which, McCallum notes with understatement, “is exceedingly rare.” I’d go farther than that; I don’t think it’s ever happened. (The instructive tale of my own experience with House Ethics is recorded here.) Nothing substantive has ever emerged from the House Ethics Panel, that’s for sure. As for earlier history, those with deeper knowledge of the days when lawmakers routinely engaged in fisticuffs under the Golden Dome can feel free to enlighten me in the Comments.

Martin LaLonde, who as chair of House Judiciary helps write the laws we all must abide by, also chairs the Ethics Panel; he declined to be interviewed. Ditto Speaker Jill Krowinski. Carroll and Morrissey each declined “several” interview requests. We do know, indirectly, that Krowinski decided not to appoint Morrissey to a House-Senate committee of conference that she would normally have gotten as the ranking Republican on her House committee.

Carroll declined to provide the video to Seven Days because he considers it his private property and not subject to public records disclosure, which is a remarkably thin argument when the material has been submitted for use in official proceedings. The Capitol police chief has delayed McCallum’s request for the video because it “requires consultation between one or more agencies or components of agencies,” whatever the hell that means.

All of this is a terrible way to fulfill whatever obligation Our Elected Officials ought to feel toward the voting public who, ahem, chose them to represent our interests. I once wrote that Vermont’s Founders “may have been drunk” when they crafted Vermont’s constitution because they gave the House and Senate full and complete authority over their own ethics processes. Combine that with the way the two chambers close ranks around a troubled member unless a situation becomes intolerably extreme (remember the Senate’s struggles to avoid doing anything about then-senator Norm McAllister?), and you have the ultimate fox/henhouse situation.

Broader view: The Legislature needs a far more open and accessible ethics process, and it will never, ever agree to the slightest diminution of its self-governance. Close-up view: They’re going to have to do something about Morrissey. As absurd as her all-but-proven misdeeds may be, it’s hard to imagine her returning to duty. It would be such a thoroughly uncomfortable situation for all concerned.

But let’s say she stands for re-election and wins. Leadership will probably declare that The People Have Spoken and have chosen Morrissey to represent them. But how can the voters possibly make a reasoned decision when everything is being withheld from their view?

In the absence of an open process in this case, perhaps a little prankster justice is in order. When the Legislature reconvenes on June 17 for its veto override session, maybe someone should put a couple dozen water bottles on Morrissey’s desk. Just in case she’s run short of ammo.